Lords and Vassals
by Sandshrew777
Summary: A couple of years after Voldemort's defeat, Harry enjoys a day off from work. A very, very boring day off...until a visitor confuses the boredom right out of him. A possible explanation of Draco's nod in the epilogue of Deathly Hallows.


**Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, or any of its related indicia. I also do not own a sufficient supply of chocolate at the moment, which is decidedly not good...**

**Author's Note: This is meant to be rather silly, although it gets a little serious near the end. Enjoy it, please; it's meant to be pretty lighthearted. Please review, also. Thanks.**

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Harry sighed into his chocolate milk. It was his day off and he had absolutely nothing to do. Ginny was gone for the day, Ron and Hermione were probably busy doing whatever it was they did together - they were in their "on" period again - and Harry was left alone.

But that was not how he liked it.

He had _Matilda_ playing on the VCR and was quite entertained, of course, by the little girl who found she had amazing telekinetic powers which allowed her to triumph over a nasty and overbearing principal. Hermione had given him the film, promising that he would love it. Ron's eyeroll told him otherwise, but about ten minutes was all it took for Harry to fall in love with little Matilda and her impressive resolve.

There were, of course, some people who would never understand or appreciate Matilda for who she was. Harry liked that. You couldn't please everyone all of the time - barely, if at all, really - and as Matilda's parents signed their daughter away to the loving Miss Jennifer Honey, Harry wondered if that wasn't the definition of love right there.

And then a knock came at the door, soft, so soft that Harry barely heard it. But he flew up off the couch anyway, nearly bumping the coffee table and his glass of chocolate milk over in the process and went over to the door. He wrenched it open - it was not locked, nor did Harry check through the peephole to see who it was, although Ginny kept telling him he needed to start doing that - and there was a surprise.

"Hello, Potter. May I come in?" the surprise asked, and without waiting for a response he neatly slid over the threshold and into the flat.

"I see the Weaslette knows how to decorate," Draco commented as Harry finally recovered enough to shut the door.

"What - " Harry started.

"Am I doing here?" Draco filled in. "You couldn't even start with an 'Eat slugs, Malfoy!', for old time's sake?"

Harry blinked a few times in confusion. Draco shook his head.

"Figured not. You always were hopelessly to-the-point," Draco muttered.

Harry continued to stare at Draco, who merely lifted one blond eyebrow.

"Well, then. I guess I'll get to it," Draco said. "I owe you a Wizard's Debt. I think we both know why."

"Oh," was all Harry could say.

"Oh indeed," Draco replied shortly. "Now, what will you have me do?"

"Do?"

"Yes, Potter. Do. As in, an action. A favor. An errand, a task, a quest to go slay a dragon - whatever the hell it is you...goody-goods need done," Draco finished, gesturing flimsily with his hand.

"Oh," Harry repeated. "Er...I dunno."

"Come _on_, Potter!" Draco snapped. "I've got a business meeting at four and I'd really like to get out of your 'glorious presence' as soon as humanly possible."

Harry glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall far beyond Draco's cross-armed form: 2:42 P.M.

"I'm hungry. Are you hungry? I'm hungry. I could go for a sandwich," Harry suddenly - and quickly - shot out. "A nice turkey sandwich. Yeah. Whatever you want to put on it, I don't care, I eat pretty much anything, just turkey and bread's fine if you want. Yeah. Er...yeah."

Draco's eyebrow, which had not since left its arched position, was joined by its equally blond and now equally arched partner.

"...A sandwich. A turkey sandwich. You save my life and all you want in return is a fucking SANDWICH?" Draco shouted.

"Er..." Harry managed.

"Fine. Fine, Potter. You want a sandwich, you've got it. Fucking ponce," Draco muttered, pulling out his wand.

"Um...the kitchen's right there," Harry said, pointing behind Draco.

Draco turned slowly, took in the kitchen, then slid his gaze back to Harry.

"You want me to make it?"

Harry nodded.

"With my bare hands?"

Another nod.

"I..._suppose_," Draco grated out, putting his wand back into the inside pocket of his light spring jacket. He moved warily into the kitchen, almost as if he were afraid something was going to leap out at him with a rolling pin and force him into the oven to cook for twenty minutes on 450 until he was a crisp, juicy roast Malfoy.

The sounds of static rasped into Harry's ears and he realized that _Matilda_ had finished without him. Thankful for a distraction from the very hesitant Malfoy who had suddenly appeared in his flat, Harry tended to the VCR. He ignored the sounds of crashing, crushing plates, of muttered Latin to repair them and muttered curses about "bloody Potter and his bloody sandwich" because it was just easier that way. Besides, wasn't that what Hermione had always wanted him to do: ignore Malfoy?

Harry kind of wanted to tell Malfoy to get the hell out of his house, of course; but first of all, this wasn't a house (he still had Grimmauld Place, but he refused to actually live in that thing) and second, by the time he'd regained control over his mouth to say much of anything worthwhile, Malfoy had brought up the War and Harry saw in his mind's eye that tear-stained, shocked face when Malfoy realized one of his best - and only - friends not only hated him and had tried to (inadvertently) kill him, but was now dead. Dead and gone, and nobody but he (Malfoy) and maybe Goyle were ever going to care.

So he was going to let Malfoy make him a sandwich - because he was hungry, mostly, of course.

Of course.

"There, Potter."

Harry stopped mindlessly fiddling with the now-turned off VCR and turned around. Draco held up a plate with Harry's sandwich on it.

Harry walked over, took the proferred plate gently but without hesitation, and tucked into his sandwich. Draco wiped his hands together.

"I guess that's..." Draco trailed off after just a few words, surprised at just how fast Harry Potter could eat; the poor turkey sandwich was gone in about four bites.

"...All..." Draco finished.

"Yeah," Harry said, wiping his mouth with his sleeve, "That's it. Consider your debt repaid."

Draco studied Harry intensely, almost as if Harry were some puzzling Arithmancy problem he couldn't quite figure out - if he were still at Hogwarts, that is, and Harry looked anything like a diagram, which, although the glasses did help that look, they weren't quite enough.

"That _is_ it, isn't it?" Draco muttered after a short while of staring. "No tricks. No games. Just...this."

"Just a sandwich," Harry agreed, nodding. He even managed a small smile, from somewhere.

"Hmmph," Draco replied.

And he walked to the door, opened it, and very nearly left.

But of course, "Hmmph" isn't a very dramatic exit. It's all well and good for a Weasley, maybe even Granger, but not a Malfoy.

So Draco turned, looked down at his hands, looked up at Harry, down at his hands again, nodded once, almost to himself, and crossed the short distance to a very confused Harry Potter.

Then Draco got down on one knee, and the very confused Harry Potter got very, very nervous.

"Malfoy..." he started.

"Hold out your hands," Draco replied.

"Malfoy!" Harry shot back, eyes widening. He wanted to back up, but his butt was against the couch as it was and if he tried to go any further he'd be tumbling quite inelegantly into his couch and that would be not good. Not good at all.

"Just do it, Potter," Draco said, almost tiredly.

And if that note, that tone of Malfoy almost giving up or something - if that didn't do it, his next word did:

"Please."

Harry stopped the words in his throat at that and held out slightly trembling hands. He wasn't sure why they were shaking, but they were, shaking almost as much as Magnus' portrait did on the wall in _Matilda_.

Draco placed his hands inside Harry's, so that Harry's hands completely covered Draco's, one on each side of his own.

"I, Draco Abraxas Malfoy, in the presence of God the Almighty, do hereby swear fealty to you, Harry..." Draco trailed off expectantly.

"James," Harry guessed at Draco's meaning.

"Harry James Potter," Draco picked it back up, "May thy vassal be struck dead if this oath broken be. So sayeth I," Draco finished.

Then he bowed his head, bowed quite low indeed, then rose to his feet, letting his hands fall out of Harry's loose grip.

"It's an old feudalist tradition. Been in my family for generations. I might not have a manor anymore, but..." Draco left the rest of the sentence unsaid and Harry understood, nodding.

"So..." Harry let the word hang.

"If you require my assistance, send an owl," Draco said simply. "Otherwise, leave me alone."

"I'll do that," Harry said to both statements. Draco scoffed a little, then gave Harry the tiniest of smiles.

And with that, Draco turned and walked out the open door, down the stairs, down and out of Harry's day.

And with that, Harry sunk into the couch, grabbed his chocolate milk and stared into it, wondering if that hadn't been the definition of honor right there.

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End file.
